Daniel holds nothing back of the truth in confessing the transgression, sin and iniquity of his people, Israel, he righteously characterized as rebellion in their departure from God’s written Word. Twice in his confession he also points up the people’s disobedience to God’s direct instruction and warnings to them through His prophets (Daniel 9:6, 10). Besides Moses and Isaiah of the greatest of these prophets (Deuteronomy 28; Isaiah 1), Jeremiah and Ezekiel Daniel’s contemporaries were used mightily of God to graphically present and cry out against their sin, call for their repentance and pronounce His judgment upon their stubborn refusal to do so (Jeremiah 2, 11:11-17; Ezekiel 8, 12).
No, the shame of Babylonian captivity Daniel also asserts twice in his confession to God did not come without prior warning over many years in His longsuffering, forbearance and readiness to mercifully forgive as Israel ‘“rebelled against Him,’” (Daniel 9:7-9, NKJV). Thus, it was that after long sounding his trumpet of warning, Daniel’s fellow prophet in exile, Ezekiel, as God’s watchman to the rebellious captives (whose ministry my own is patterned) learned Jerusalem had fallen into the hands of the Babylonians and directed by Him, announced its complete desolation (Ezekiel 33:1-9, 21-29). Praying with painful hindsight and agreement with God’s written Word, Daniel confesses to Him why.
He prays: ‘“Yes, all Israel has transgressed Your law and has departed so as not to obey Your voice.’” As a foretold consequence, he acknowledges they now, had a desolate homeland, holy city, Jerusalem, and Temple as righteous judgment from God (Daniel 9:11-12, NKJV). I remind us in America again that Israel is the only chosen people and nation of God in history.4 Yet, He brought upon them His righteous judgment stemming from their departure from His Word in disobedience as well as stubborn refusal to repent. Now, if He did this to Israel, where do the many guilty in our nation get off asserting an exceptional standing that exempts us from the same (Jeremiah 25:15-29)?
This is a great falsehood in the land that is working tangible desolations commensurate with the nation’s moral ruin (Micah 3:8-12). For in the arrogance of this self-deceit, the guilty are refusing to humble themselves and repent before God Almighty while He intensifies the desolations upon our nation in our plain view through calamities such as devastating storms, out of season tornadoes, wildfires and His unrelenting Coronavirus pestilence (Isaiah 45:6-7).5 Like Israel, will you foolishly continue not to see ‘“all this disaster has come upon us’” because of transgression, sin and iniquity refusing to repent and ‘“understand’” God’s ‘“truth,’” (Deuteronomy 31:14-32:47; Daniel 9:13, NKJV)?
The foregoing is especially heartbreaking in a land filled with so many professed Christians, their churches and religious educated elites that ostensibly know God and His truth fully written, but who willfully refuse to acknowledge the obvious for all manner of motives. Is not this scenario of spiritual dullness through preoccupation with Christianity as manmade religion how it is that the biblical instruction of salvation by grace through faith alone had to be uncovered again by Martin Luther, a broken and miserable German priest searching for the living God using his Latin Vulgate and Greek Bible translations after over a millennium of corrupt Catholicism usurped and buried it?
Because God is holy, righteous and just, sin not confessed and repented of always has consequences no matter who it is that is guilty! The plain fact is Israel in sin not confessed or repented of was guilty before God. Consequently, as Daniel declares soberly to God in his prayer about Israel’s obstinacy (and ours too), ‘“Therefore the LORD has kept the disaster in mind, and brought it upon us; for the LORD our God is righteous in all the works which He does, though we have not obeyed His voice.’”6 He adds in simple humility, ‘“we have sinned, we have done wickedly;’” including himself in again with his people despite that he was godly (Daniel 9:14-15, NKJV).7 Daniel confessed and repented even though, Israel in the disaster as many today, still refused to do so!
In spite of his people’s failure to do right, Daniel closes his prayer appealing to God in all of His ‘“righteousness’” to ‘“let Your anger and fury be turned away from Your city Jerusalem…,’” (Daniel 9:16, NKJV). God’s righteousness here was to honor His Word; the prophecy He gave Jeremiah to limit Jerusalem’s desolation at the time to “seventy years,” (Jeremiah 25:1-11; NKJV). Daniel then, appeals to God to hear him and take pity on the ‘“desolate’” state of His ‘“sanctuary’” as well as the ‘“desolations’” of the people as He looks out on the situation not in accord with their ‘“righteous deeds’” since they had none, but His ‘“great mercies,’” (Daniel 9:17-18, NKJV). Finally, he exhorts God to ‘“forgive…listen and act,’” (Daniel 9:19, NKJV). Should professed Christians pray otherwise?
4 See the two-part post that begins August 2, 2020, Flavorless Salt Is Worthless, under the category, Call To Repent.
5 Read the July 5, 2020 post, Decision At The Crossroads, under the category, Call To Repent. For all including professed Christians in unbelief that want to redefine God Almighty out of existence or in one’s personally determined image of Him, He is who He is and does what He pleases as it is written (Exodus 3:13-14; Psalm 135:-6; Isaiah 40:12-26)! As a result, mortals should fear in the face of His power rather than dismiss Him through hearts proudly hardened. Or don’t you realize that He who with a word instantly stilled storms (Mark 4:35-41) is also able to permit them with other calamities as works of Satan (Job 1:6-19; Lamentations 3:37-38; Amos 3:6b) and summon them at whatever intensity He wills as He shall do in His wrath before the end of these “latter days,” (Psalm 135:7; Jeremiah 25:30-38,30:23-24, NKJV)?
6 As the harlot daughters of Catholicism in the over 500 years since Luther launched the Protestant Reformation with his biblical rediscovery of God’s salvation by grace through faith in Christ alone, the guilty have shared fully in their mother’s harlotries of disobedience, feat of choking off sound doctrine and being stubbornly unwilling to repent. This is to their terminal judgment with their mother (2 Timothy 3:1-12; Revelation 16:19b, 17-19:4)!
7 While in my book,The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics, the Lord leads me to hold up faithfulness as the character trait Daniel exemplifies, obviously humility is also among the many character traits of Christ and the aspiring strong man of God in His image he displays. Get my book along with its companion works The Strong Man Of God Men’s Group Study and Great Woman Of God Women’s Group Study at your favorite internet book seller and in the Strong Man Store.
The world as nations and peoples at large and our nation in particular among them, are where we are now, as a direct consequence of the ongoing war of the ages, transgression, sin and iniquity along with divine foretold and brought judgment! The foretelling of these turbulent times churning with destructive desolations from deliberate manmade acts and so-called “natural” disasters to include the deadly global Coronavirus pandemic foretold millennia in advance by God through His Jewish prophets and Son (Matthew 24:7) in the Bible, is yet another manifest proof of His existence and eternal greatness for those with eyes that are willing to see (Isaiah 43:8-13, 44:6-8, 45:18-25).
Indeed, here in America I once again write on this Sanctity Of Life Sunday sadly having to be instituted by biblically conservative Christians to emphatically affirm the value of human life from conception in a culture of death. This same day is also equally sad as the eve of the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday commemorating a Christian black American that was martyred while advocating in biblically conservative taught non-violence against the nation’s historic, blatant and systemic oppression of blacks and other minorities through racial bigotry. Both occasions manifestly signify the evil working of sin in our nation and are only the tip of the proverbial iceberg of its depravity.
As the Lord has led, I have been repeatedly crying out against and warning of His judgment upon the moral ruin of our nation and very importantly too, the disobedience of those that profess to be His followers as Christians. As He instructs in His Word, Christians are supposed to be “salt” and “light” in the midst of our nation (Matthew 5:13-16, NKJV). But with our nation, professing American Christianity forms a “house divided” falling into desolation (Luke 11:17, NKJV) that cannot even agree on what the Bible actually teaches with thousands of humanly constructed theologies as I have written about in other posts1 and hundreds of different translations I presented in my last post.2
For example, many side with the secular culture against what is clearly written in the Bible to legally allow same sex persons to marry and women to murder their unborn (Genesis 1:27-28; 9:5-7; Exodus 20:13; Matthew 19:3-6, 16-19). Other professed Christians calling themselves conservative insist Jesus upholds the Constitution’s right to bear arms (weapons) for personal self-defense when it was for His defense His apostle, Peter, cut off a man’s ear and received the Lord’s perpetually standing rebuke for “all” of this epoch who follow Him (Matthew 26:47-54, NKJV). Still others of the same mind protest teaching the truth about our nation’s history of racial bigotry in our K-12 schools.3
Truly, if only all who claimed to be Christians would humbly pray with the heart of Daniel at this hour, our fractured nation and professing community under God’s judgment might see Him extend more mercy to us--things could be even worse (Psalm 136)! For understanding the plain meaning of the prophecy in the Old Testament scrolls he possessed just over 2,500 hundred years ago, Daniel applied it right away by turning to God in prayer and fasting to request that He, who is always true to His Word and merciful, would be again (Daniel 9:1-3). Such was the genuine faith in and relationship Daniel had with God from his youth who was now, a man easily in his eighties (Daniel 1:1-7).
He was later told by the angel, Gabriel, ‘“At the beginning of your supplications the command’” from God ‘“went out’” for him to come with Daniel’s answer to prayer adding, ‘“for you are greatly beloved,’” (Daniel 9:23, NKJV). Every truly born again Christian is to have such a standing with God by instruction of His Son, our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ, who Daniel surely glimpsed in a later vision (Daniel 10:1-9; John 15:16, 16:16-28). Daniel’s exemplary humble prayer of confession, repentance acknowledging God’s righteousness to judge His people who refused to repent and appeal to His eternal heart of mercy is a template today, for all who profess to know and love Him.
Daniel opens his confession exalting God’s greatness and uttering a transcendent eternal principle many professed Christians today, either willfully cast aside so their theology will work or ignorantly overlook to their detriment. Daniel in total consistency with His eternal character and the whole Bible says to God, “who keeps His covenant and mercy with those who love Him, and with those who keep His commandments,” (Daniel 9:4, NKJV). Loving God in covenant relationship is demonstrated by faithful obedience to His commandments--no exceptions as the Lord Jesus also taught (John 14:15, 19-24; 1 John 2:3-6, 5:3)! As Daniel strongly implies, Israel did not love God as seen in their breaking His covenant through disobedience (Jeremiah 11:1-10; Daniel 9:5).
1 Read the October 18, 2015 post, Pursuing Credentials And Authority, followed over the next two weeks beginning October 25, 2015 by the two-part, Religious Educated Wiser Than God? All three posts are under the category, Call To Repent.
2 See the January 9, 2022 post, Easier To Read Bibles, under the categories Bible Prophecy and Instruction.
3 While Critical Race Theory (CRT) as a legal and academic critique of racism’s impact in American society may have wrongly found its way into some K-12 school curric- ula and should be removed since as theory it has its own biases against a biblical worldview for example, the need remains for a generation of especially white Ameri- can children to finally be taught the whole historical truth about how the evil of racial bigotry did contribute to the violent and still systemic oppression of the land’s indi- genous peoples, black and other minority Americans. Contrary to the fear their children will “hate their white heritage” as a consequence, understanding the healing power of truth, empathy and repentance especially as Christians, their children will come away determined not to repeat the mistakes of the past and help to undo what remains of American racial practices as some, such as white evangelical, David Barton, are trying to do right now. I recommend his book, Setting The Record Straight: American History In Black & White for those retreating from public education to private and home schools over CRT so your children can still be taught the truth! I ex- amined several online sources to understand more about CRT including American Bar Association, Education Week, Encyclopedia Britannica, and Middle Tennessee State University’s The First Amendment Encyclopedia.
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